Protest over Jasper County School Board special election results rejected

A protest over the results of a March 19 special Jasper County School Board District 9 election has been rejected.

Two candidates — Priscilla Green and Pamela Williams — protested the results saying the Jasper County Election Commission violated at least three statutes of Title 7, which is South Carolina’s election law.

The Jasper County Election Commission rejected the protest during a Monday hearing ruling Green’s protest was denied for “lack of evidence,” and Williams’ was denied for “absence of presence.”

Leroy Bentley of Bellinger Hill was declared the winner with 108 votes, ahead of Green (97 votes) and former District 8 school board member Williams (84 votes). Bentley earned 29 absentee votes; there were two for Green.

Green and Williams argued Monday that they were not notified of the hearings in a timely manner.

Green said she received her notification on Monday morning via mail. She said the postmarks on the letters from the election office, one for the first protest made on March 20 and the second for the protest on March 24, were dated March 27 and March 28, respectively.

Green said the protests were delivered as they are required to be delivered by the Sheriff’s Office, but if she hadn’t checked her mail Monday morning, she would never have known about the protest hearing, which was held at 1 p.m. Monday.

“I had no time to prepare for this hearing,” she said.

Election Commission vice-chairman James Daley recused himself from the proceedings because he was personally listed in the protest. Concerns about early public disclosure of absentee ballot results were not discussed.

“I do plan on appealing this with the South Carolina State Elections Commission,” Green said. “I’m going to take this to the next level. I expected this today.”

Among the statutes Green and Williams said were violated is 7-27-340, which requires that the county elections commission be comprised of nine members. It has five: Donald Sheftall, Daley, Carl Tyler, Jake Brown and Lillian King.

The second and third statutes deal with absentee ballots.

Absentee ballot results are not to be made public until after the polls close, but during the afternoon of the special election, Williams and others heard Bentley had received 27 absentee votes. The absentee ballot count ended at 11:30 a.m.

According to Chris Whitmire, director of public information and training for the State Election Commission, that information is not public record until after the polls close.

The state statute, 7-15-420, notes that “results of the tabulation must not be publicly reported until after all the polls are closed.”